In packaging a food product for distribution and sale to consumers, manufacturers must consider, among other issues, the cost and degree of difficulty of manufacturing a package, the ability of a package to resist damage, leakage and spillage during any further manufacturing operations as well as during subsequent shipping, retailing and post-purchase activities, the appearance of the packaged product, and the degree of difficulty associated with removing the product from a package.
For certain types of food products, manufacturers must also consider the ability of a package to prevent certain gasses or vapors from leaking into or out of the packaged product between packaging and consumption by consumers. Packages for products such as ready-to-bake breads, and products incorporating ready-to-bake breads such as frozen pizza products and the like, must be generally impermeable to certain gasses and vapors and well sealed so that functional properties that affect the performance of the product may be preserved at levels acceptable to consumers. In the case of frozen pizza products, packages must prevent the infiltration of undesirable amounts of oxygen, which can impair the ability of the pizza crust to rise during preparation and baking, and the exfiltration of undesirable amounts of water vapor during cold storage, which can cause “freezer burn”, both of which tend to degrade the baking performance of the product and give rise to an underdeveloped crust that is of poor quality.
Although the prior art discloses various gas resistant, gas impermeable and hermetic packages for food products (herein such packages will be defined generically as hermetic packages for simplicity), there is a continuing need to reduce package failure rates and thereby the number of defective units of packaged product as well as program costs associated with manufacturers' efforts to assure consumer satisfaction and goodwill. In the case of frozen pizza products, packaging defects such as incomplete seals, weakly bonded portions of seals and portions of seals bridged by small food items can compromise package integrity and degrade baking performance. Such defects may not become apparent to consumers during casual inspection prior to baking, foreclosing opportunities to reject defectively packaged products prior to purchase, or to return defectively packaged products in a condition suitable for exchange. Such defects may instead only evince themselves through poor baking performance, which may lead consumers to believe that a product itself, rather than a defectively packaged unit of product, is of poor quality and substantially reduce the likelihood of repeat sales.
Package designs for these types of food products should not unnecessarily increase the degree of difficulty associated with removing a product from a package. In convenience food products, including frozen pizza products and the like, packages that do not require consumers to use scissors, a knife or some other sharp implement to access the food product can significantly contribute to consumer satisfaction with the overall product. If a product is to be packaged in a tool-less package that incorporates a peelable seal, manufacturers must consider a trade off between the width and strength of the peelable seal, where increased width and strength tends to contribute to decreased package failure rates, and the degree of difficulty associated with removing the product from the package, where the degree of difficulty tends to increase as the peeling force required to open the package increases in relation to the width and strength of the peelable seal.